Guild Wars 2

So, I was reading through the changes, and this is it:

Necromancer

*Fixed an issue in which the number of targets skill fact would not appear for various skills when certain traits were equipped.
*Wells: Added a range indicator for these skills when not traited with Focused Rituals.
*Withering Plague: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Plague of Darkness: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Plague of Pestilence: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Epidemic: Added a missing skill fact for number of targets (5).
*Life Transfer: Updated the skill facts to use radius instead of range.
*Flesh Golem:
*Charge: Corrected the knockback skill fact to the knockdown skill fact.
*Death Shroud: Updated the skill facts when traited with Death Shiver.
*Signet of Undeath: Added a skill fact for number of targets (3).
*Dark Path: Added a skill fact for number of targets (5).
*Greater Marks: Fixed a bug that prevented some marks from displaying their number of targets skill facts when this trait was equipped.
*Toxic Landing: Added a skill fact for number of targets (3).
*Foul Current: Added a skill fact for number of targets (5).
*Tainted Shackles: Added a skill fact for number of targets (5).
*Wave of Fear: Added a skill fact for number of targets (5).
*Chillblains:
Increased the blast radius to 240 to match other staff mark skills.
*Fixed an issue in which the blast radius skill fact would not be displayed when traited with Greater Marks.
Increased the particle effect size to better match the skill’s radius.
*Reaper’s Mark: Fixed an issue in which the blast radius skill fact would not be displayed when traited with Greater Marks.
*Life Blast (Underwater):
Renamed the skill to “Plague Blast” in order to clarify its unique functionality.
Updated the traits associated with this skill to specify that they work with Plague Blast in addition to Life Blast.
Fixed an issue in which the damage skill fact was lower than the actual value.
*Unyielding Blast:
*Updated the vulnerability skill fact to show the number of stacks of vulnerability applied (2).
Fixed an issue in which this trait would inflict vulnerability on the player in addition to the targets when used under water.
*Doom: Updated the fear skill fact to scale correctly with Master of Terror.
*Spectral Wall: Updated the fear skill fact to scale correctly with Master of Terror.
*Training of the Master: Fixed a bug that prevented the minion damage skill facts from updating when this trait was equipped.

Thoughts?

You missed the biggest and most important change: 4th bonus on Strength runes had its might reduced from 5s to 10s, and 6th bonus is down to 5%.

Bhawb.7408:

You missed the biggest and most important change: 4th bonus on Strength runes had its might reduced from 5s to 10s, and 6th bonus is down to 5%.

I’m giddy with joy about this nerf

Now the ele/hambow/shattermes power creep is a bit more managable, and these runes may actually become cheap again!

nearlight.3064:

Bhawb.7408:

You missed the biggest and most important change: 4th bonus on Strength runes had its might reduced from 5s to 10s, and 6th bonus is down to 5%.

I’m giddy with joy about this nerf

Now the ele/hambow/shattermes power creep is a bit more managable, and these runes may actually become cheap again!

Here here! Very warranted nerf. No one rune set should rule them all.

For the runes I could see that one coming. Just like perplexity and lyssa it was pretty evident that these runes were going to get hit and quite rightly in my opinion.

If you were daft enough to spend nearly a 100 gold on them then you’re probably not going to be a happy bunny today as I suspect the price will drop a good bit.

Its already dropped like 4g or something, and I imagine it will drop more.

aww yeah that price drop!!! I’m glad I sold two I had lying around from when they were cheap a few weeks ago for 17 gold a piece!

I doubt I’d ever really buy these, I’m too busy using chill runes for wvw, and in pve scholar is so much nicer.

Bhawb.7408:

Its already dropped like 4g or something, and I imagine it will drop more.

Yeah i just checked the price here http://www.gw2tp.com/item/24714-superior-rune-of-strength and seen they were around 16/17 gold before patch and now they are around 9/10 gold.

mompen.7952:

• Chillblains:
  Increased the blast radius to 240 to match other staff mark skills.
• Fixed an issue in which the blast radius skill fact would not be displayed when traited with Greater Marks.
  Increased the particle effect size to better match the skill’s radius.
• Reaper’s Mark: Fixed an issue in which the blast radius skill fact would not be displayed when traited with Greater Marks.

So just to clarify for those who are wondering what these changes mean:

Blast Radius in context of marks means the area of effect when the mark is triggered, as opposed to the mark radius which indicates the area of where the mark can be triggered.
The Blast Radius is always 60 units more than the mark radius, so 240 without and 300 with Greater Marks.
For combat application: if one target triggers any of your marks, any other target that is actually standing up to 60 range outside of it will get hit as well. This applies to regeneration for allies on Mark of Blood as well.

The big buff here is that our Chillblains’ poison field is now bigger than before because it matched the regular mark radius.

Also, yay Runes of Strength!

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

There likely won’t ever be balance if they just focus on balancing what is already there. It could take forever. I think I what they are doing now is actually smart in that they are trying to open new playstyles with new traits and skills, but they make everything very weak that it doesn’t come to fruition.

But i’d rather have new content than worry about when I can confidently carry corruptive poison cloud, for example.

Roe.3679:

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

There likely won’t ever be balance if they just focus on balancing what is already there. It could take forever. I think I what they are doing now is actually smart in that they are trying to open new playstyles with new traits and skills, but they make everything very weak that it doesn’t come to fruition.

But i’d rather have new content than worry about when I can confidently carry corruptive poison cloud, for example.

It absolutely would take forever, and it is an never ending process, which is part of what is required in a game to maintain one step ahead of a competitve pvp environment… I realize most people would laugh at me for calling it that, but the potential was there.

Unlike most MMO’s where you have to concern yourself with power creep from gear and how that interacts with skills, and new talent combinations as level caps raise,, they have attained the top end of their gear/level (supposedly). You can’t ask for a better sandbox to take the top off the strong skills and push up the weaker skills, in a stable gear environment.

Of course most people are happy with new PVE content I agree, but seeing as the parts of the game I really enjoyed have seen the least level of attention, it may be that the game just isn’t for me anymore.

Back when skills were being updated on a regular basis it felt like the potential for innovation was there. There is no innovation if the skills are only marginally adjusted on a semi annual basis. Even the new skills, that had such promise, like SR 30 and the healing blast… absolutely no attention to the hit box problems, clunkyness of the skill, etc.

They have basically given up on their original idea of balance shaving and iteration. How can they hope to have a pvp mode where they update it so infrequently?

Rennoko.5731:

Roe.3679:

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

There likely won’t ever be balance if they just focus on balancing what is already there. It could take forever. I think I what they are doing now is actually smart in that they are trying to open new playstyles with new traits and skills, but they make everything very weak that it doesn’t come to fruition.

But i’d rather have new content than worry about when I can confidently carry corruptive poison cloud, for example.

It absolutely would take forever, and it is an never ending process, which is part of what is required in a game to maintain one step ahead of a competitve pvp environment… I realize most people would laugh at me for calling it that, but the potential was there.

Unlike most MMO’s where you have to concern yourself with power creep from gear and how that interacts with skills, and new talent combinations as level caps raise,, they have attained the top end of their gear/level (supposedly). You can’t ask for a better sandbox to take the top off the strong skills and push up the weaker skills, in a stable gear environment.

Of course most people are happy with new PVE content I agree, but seeing as the parts of the game I really enjoyed have seen the least level of attention, it may be that the game just isn’t for me anymore.

Back when skills were being updated on a regular basis it felt like the potential for innovation was there. There is no innovation if the skills are only marginally adjusted on a semi annual basis. Even the new skills, that had such promise, like SR 30 and the healing blast… absolutely no attention to the hit box problems, clunkyness of the skill, etc.

I’m with you on multiple levels. They need more frequent balancing and more skills/traits/weapons, etc. if they won’t give pvp more game modes and more updates to WvW, then they need to give us more variety in the same infrastructure.

I agree though in that I think they are close, but they are frustratingly bad at getting closer.

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

Content can fix everything except nerfs, and at this point not a whole lot actually needs nerfing. It also has the secondary effect of being much better overall, and generally easier to do.

Speaking about current patch…. Have you seen Delaqua creating Bone bridge as a Necromancer? I want it too!

Bhawb.7408:

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

Content can fix everything except nerfs, and at this point not a whole lot actually needs nerfing. It also has the secondary effect of being much better overall, and generally easier to do.

I would very much disagree. A lot of skills and combinations are far to strong then alternative options. When the vast majority of class X is running build Y, then the game has failed at balancing. There should always be advantages and disadvantages to build choices, but right now you see mostly the same traits and skills instead of viable options.

No one likes the dirty word nerf, but frankly you either do that or buff the lesser used skills and find them weaved into the same basic combinations. The idea of shaving is such that you can slowly shift the meta to something else. It doesn’t matter WHAT it goes to, but it has to go somewhere or the game gets incredibly stale.

They don’t shave, they just let their beard grow for 4 months, then hack at it with a razor blade and let it grow back the same as before with a few irregularities…. that is not the way to handle a competitive game.

The sad part is they have access to all this data and more, or so I am led to believe, and still choose to ignore the fact that the focus of builds and roles in PvP is so narrow. I don’t have the answers for the balance problems, but I can tell you right now if you go after the most popular choices and bring them down, they at least give the lesser builds a chance to be competitive.

To be optimistic, I’m uber happy that Training of the Master is FINALLY fixed

I’m more of the opinion that, if each class has 1 build that they can use to compete competitively in PvP, then balance is doing well with every class being viable. At the end of the day, “competitive” anything (PvE, PvP, WvW) is going to boil down to filling a particular role as hard as you can. A certain configuration of traits/skills are going to accomplish that, and if you can fill that role harder than someone else, then you’re going to use the most optimal version of that build when you play.

I don’t really see anything wrong with that. Outside of the strictly top-tier competitive environment, I’ve seen a really wide variety of builds, especially in the Necro forums. Apothecary builds, minion builds, condition builds, power builds, vamp builds (regardless of what people say about them, others still run them and must find success at their level to continue running them), tankier builds. So what if every single one of these builds isn’t being used on a top-tier team that wins the ToL?

Even if you look at a game like DOTA 2 with a wide variety of heroes, item and skill builds at the professional level largely are static. You do a certain thing, and it only changes when someone does a different thing that becomes accepted for some reason. Heroes come and go for seemingly no reason other than simply falling out of favor. The meta is almost constantly shifting, sure, but an MMO is much less conducive to shifting around from class to class because people become attached to their characters.

As far as MMO balance is concerned, I honestly think GW2 is in a pretty good place. “Playing how you want” in an MMO at the competitive level is, in my opinion, a lie people tell themselves because they don’t want to accept the fact that there is always a path of least resistance/most effectiveness, and people are going to find it and follow it as hard as they can to achieve results. People also seem to think “playing how you want”, a line they quote ANet as saying that I haven’t personally seen, extends to “playing at a competitive level and winning with whatever build/style you want on whatever class you want”.

I really want to know how people think that could possibly be the case.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m more of the opinion that, if each class has 1 build that they can use to compete competitively in PvP, then balance is doing well with every class being viable. At the end of the day, “competitive” anything (PvE, PvP, WvW) is going to boil down to filling a particular role as hard as you can. A certain configuration of traits/skills are going to accomplish that, and if you can fill that role harder than someone else, then you’re going to use the most optimal version of that build when you play.

I agree. Objectively, if one (best) build exists for each class you have a balanced game. Build diversity is a different issue.
However, this approach has more practical relevance to PvE. There is usually just one way to build for maximum damage, which is all that matters.
In PvP on the other hand, player skill is more important.
In case some of you didn’t see the last Ready Up interview with Helseth: he basically said you should run whatever you want, because being good at a non-meta build will contribute more than trying to make a team composition work that you’re not used to. It’s better to adept to the opposing team and situation than forcing predetermined roles on some classes or builds.

flow.6043:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m more of the opinion that, if each class has 1 build that they can use to compete competitively in PvP, then balance is doing well with every class being viable. At the end of the day, “competitive” anything (PvE, PvP, WvW) is going to boil down to filling a particular role as hard as you can. A certain configuration of traits/skills are going to accomplish that, and if you can fill that role harder than someone else, then you’re going to use the most optimal version of that build when you play.

I agree. Objectively, if one (best) build exists for each class you have a balanced game. Build diversity is a different issue.
However, this approach has more practical relevance to PvE. There is usually just one way to build for maximum damage, which is all that matters.
In PvP on the other hand, player skill is more important.
In case some of you didn’t see the last Ready Up interview with Helseth: he basically said you should run whatever you want, because being good at a non-meta build will contribute more than trying to make a team composition work that you’re not used to. It’s better to adept to the opposing team and situation than forcing predetermined roles on some classes or builds.

You should be fighting a class, not just a build.

Helseth is also someone who complains alot about this game, i’m suprised they even interviewed him. Anet has this superb ability to ignore useful information.

Kahrgan.7401:

You should be fighting a class, not just a build.
…

Like I said, in PvP you’ll always have more build diversity.
Unlike PvE, you don’t need full berserker gear, then “skip this, stack here, fiery rush there…”.
And whether or not people can pull off the build they want to run doesn’t depend on what the current meta for each class or team composition is.
Players who use their main class and favorite build – even if it’s not “meta” – will be a bigger asset to their team than someone who runs something supposedly better which they have less experience with.

Rennoko.5731:

I think it is a shame incremental balance has all but vanished from the game. Quarterly, at best, balance adjustments to the game don’t work for me.

I completely agree with you that balance patches are far too far apart. They should be at least monthly, and preferably bi-weekly if it’s just minor tweaks.

However, to be fair, the meta was so shaken up by the big feature patch, that it really took a while for things to settle and for the real consequences of the changes they made to emerge, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the Strength runes nerf took this long.

There are far too many overused and underused skills to pretend like content is really what the game needs.

I agree with you and it’s a shame they don’’t realise it: making a few balance changes to enable a brand new build is pretty much equivalent to releasing new content – it lets people go back and do old stuff in a brand new way, in a whole new playstyle. It’s the main reason people make alts after all!
However, the fact remains that at this point in GW1’s lifecycle we already had 2 standalone new campaigns plus a mini-expansion, and 3 new pvp gamemodes. GW2 is lagging way behind in content as MMOs go. This isn’t to justify their letting useless skills languish underused – I don’t know if they’ve got people from the skill balance team also working on content (maybe scripting mob ai and monster skills or whatever), but they really really shouldn’t be!

Wasbunny.6531:

nearlight.3064:

Bhawb.7408:

You missed the biggest and most important change: 4th bonus on Strength runes had its might reduced from 5s to 10s, and 6th bonus is down to 5%.

I’m giddy with joy about this nerf

Now the ele/hambow/shattermes power creep is a bit more managable, and these runes may actually become cheap again!

Here here! Very warranted nerf. No one rune set should rule them all.

Yay, now we can go back to Scholar runes ruling PvE, when before you actually had a second option.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Wasbunny.6531:

nearlight.3064:

Bhawb.7408:

You missed the biggest and most important change: 4th bonus on Strength runes had its might reduced from 5s to 10s, and 6th bonus is down to 5%.

I’m giddy with joy about this nerf

Now the ele/hambow/shattermes power creep is a bit more managable, and these runes may actually become cheap again!

Here here! Very warranted nerf. No one rune set should rule them all.

Yay, now we can go back to Scholar runes ruling PvE, when before you actually had a second option.

There always the absurdly cheap flame legion runes, which are a poor people’s alternative to to strength runes for PUGs, since it works as long as you have a guard or ele in the party

Yeah scholar is still supreme for top tier pve, but it has more risk associated with using it compared to the relatively risk free strength runes, so I think scholar is fine the way it is. Its a question of whether or not you want higher-risk more reward, or lower risk and less reward.

What’s risky about using scholar runes? Staying above 90%?

NeXeD.3042:

What’s risky about using scholar runes? Staying above 90%?

Yup, basically staying above 90% for the bonus can be considered risky, but totally doable if you’re a good player and in a good group. And regen from focus 4 in your rotation helps mitigate that a bit, as does using deathshroud!

If its a pug running all over the place and people don’t stack right in the encounters that are best done as stacked then you can get hit and lose the bonus. This is mostly a problem for me with Leurent in TA surprisingly, and lupi in Arah, since with lupi especially, if you don’t stack on a reflect wall or time dodges right while in melee his AoE will be much much harder to avoid, if that makes any sense.

mompen.7952:

*Withering Plague: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Plague of Darkness: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Plague of Pestilence: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.

Plague no longer auto attacks….

Dreaming serpent.5197:

mompen.7952:

*Withering Plague: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Plague of Darkness: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.
*Plague of Pestilence: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill’s recharge from displaying. Updated the range indicator for this skill.

Plague no longer auto attacks….

Still pulses its effects each second. Functionally, there’s no difference.